Recovery

This is the spring she waits for the flowers
to bloom, keeps small inspirations in a book,
and plants only burgeoned annuals. She takes nothing

for granted, not even the day, and counts only
in hours. She watches chipmunks steal sweet
pea seeds from careful dirt rows. Her child

numbers twenty months of life, is finally able
to stand, pale seedling in the struggle for growth.
She wishes the sunshine would heal them both,

reminds herself to enjoy small buds, and learns
again how to laugh. Black flies come, then
mosquitos, after small tubes of their blood,

red spills from the cup of a tulip when hope
is most blue. She marks her child's journey
with silent tears, pressed petals among journal

pages. She prunes rose bushes, is scratched
by thorns, and tries not to fret about her child's
first step while she cradles her in greiving arms.

She buries despair in deep soil under the bleeding
hearts, weeds worries and casts spent seeds from her
palm's hollow to disperse with the down of dandelions.

***

This is about grief, about letting go of the perfect child you imagined you would have and loving the child that you hold.